Dunelm announced the appointment of Alison Brittain as an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair Designate. Alison will join the Dunelm Board on 7 September 2022 and it is expected that she will succeed Andy Harrison as Chair comfortably in advance of the expiry of his nine year term in September 2023. Alison is a highly experienced business leader who brings considerable experience from a range of consumer-facing companies.

She is currently Chief Executive of Whitbread PLC ("Whitbread"), the FTSE 100 leisure business, a role she has held since 2015. In this post she has been responsible for successfully scaling the company's various hospitality brands before overseeing the sale of its Costa Coffee portfolio in 2019. Since then, she has refocused the Group as a pureplay hotel company, strengthening the success of the UK business whilst developing an international platform for long term growth.

Following the recent announcement of her retirement as CEO at Whitbread, it is expected that she will leave the business in early 2023. Prior to her role at Whitbread, Alison held a number of senior roles in the UK banking industry, serving as Group Director in the Retail Division of Lloyds Banking Group PLC(2011-2015) and as Board Director at Santander UK PLC (2007-2011) and Barclays PLC (1987-2007). Alison is a Non-Executive Director of Experian plc, and has previously served as a Non-Executive Director of Marks & Spencer Group PLC.